Tall Midget wrote:
Nas wrote:
tommy wrote:
Nas wrote:
veganfan21 wrote:
Brees has done more for New Orleans than a lot of his critics ever have for their own communities. Brees can be guilty of bad judgment and tone deafness here but it shouldn't erase everything he's ever done for that city. RR, don't you live down there? What's your perspective?
I don't disagree with this, but to pretend that the criticisms of his statement aren't fair because "He did great things for a city" is ridiculous. He
intentionally mischaracterized the kneeling and his peers called him out.
How do you know it was intentional? If it was intentional, he probably wouldn't have tweeted it.
I am glad LeBron ripped on him. Brees is clearly misinformed and not educated on the issue of the flag and its baggage.
Because it's been explained publicly hundreds of times and I am sure his peers and teammates have had the conversation with him. There is no way that anyone who is paying attention or in that arena doesn't know.
But Brees was pretty clear in stating that he was giving his subjective interpretation of the mass kneeling, an interpretation that is informed by his family history.
I therefore think it's awfully presumptuous to label his interpretation of the protest as an "intentional mischaracterization", especially since the flag holds many different meanings for people, and there are many different standards of conduct that are deemed acceptable with regards to this overdetermined symbol.
Additionally, Brees' teammates and their supporters are not justified in saying Brees' statements are wrong simply because they don't like them or he attributed a meaning to them that they didn't intend. Their gesture was symbolic--and symbols, after all, are always open to interpretation.
There's nothing to interpret for Brees. If I'm explicitly stating hundreds of times that my actions have absolutely nothing to do with our flag or military it is absolutely a mischaracterization to state that they do.
That mischaracterization was used by Trump and others to label the players as Un-American or worse. In an attempt to throw water on their cause. It's complete bullshit and it should be criticized.
Imagine if "Wear Pink", an attempt to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer, was "interpreted" as a promotion of homosexuality. Breast cancer organizations are saying that it's all about breast cancer awareness, but a Drew Brees believes it's an attempt to turn his son gay. Criticisms of Brees would be justified just like they are now.